


Together

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: A Thousand Ways [8]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Arguing Their Way To Happiness, Feels, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Missing Scene, My Precious Morons, Realizations, using their words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9966335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: “Following me into retirement is not the same thing as keeping me from retiring. You know that, right?”Steve was more serious about the whole "together" thing than Danny realized.(Set immediately after ep. 7X18)





	

No matter how many people were there to eat the food, they never stayed around for the cleanup. That was as true here as it ever was, and the house was almost empty by the time Danny got around to tackling the stack of dishes in the sink. Grace was out with Will, Charlie was in the living room playing, and everyone else had gone home.

Steve, of course, was standing next to him, drying the dishes that Danny was washing. It should have felt like a mockery of the married couple everyone always accused them of being, but the truth was it just felt exactly like being a married couple. The ache beneath Danny’s breastbone was back, sharp as ever, but the last 24 hours had proven yet again that the average alcoholic was better at quitting than he was at leaving Steve.

The man in question was currently brooding about something, presumably whatever Lou had gotten the call about, and once they were both back at work Danny was fully prepared to pry it out of him. Right now, though, he was still firmly in personal time, which meant arguing with Steve about firmly personal topics. “I keep telling you, Steven, I can’t name a restaurant after you. That’s insane.”

Steve looked mulish. “You said....”

Danny made an exasperated sound. “What I said was that, while I wouldn’t be retiring anytime soon, there was no way I could name a restaurant after you.” He handed him the next dish. “Since our ears were still ringing from the bomb, however, you didn’t hear me.”

“’Anytime soon,’ huh?” Steve’s expression went through about three different stages as he dried, none of which Danny could read. “How long would that be, exactly?”

As long as it took to figure out how to let go of Steve, but that wasn’t exactly an answer he could say out loud. “I don’t know. Last time I checked, I had not yet magically developed the ability to see the future.”

Steve didn’t respond to that, and for a moment Danny thought that he’d gotten lost to brooding again. He started working on another dish, thinking about what new argument he wanted to try and distract his partner with, when Steve’s voice suddenly cut through the quiet. “You know, I’ve hit my 20 with the Navy,” he said thoughtfully. “I could retire.”

Danny made a scoffing noise. “You’re never going to retire.” He didn’t bother keeping the incredulousness out of his voice as he looked up at Steve. “You’ll be 80 years old, if you live that long, still jumping off of buildings and tackling criminals.”

Steve just shrugged, expression a hell of a lot more serious than Danny had expected. “Unless someone comes along and offers me other job opportunities, possibly something that utilizes my amazing dish drying skills.” He started work on one of the dishes Danny had put in the sink, his voice the same one he always used when he was trying to convince Danny that something was really a great idea. “Since Kamekona and Flippa use paper dishes, I thought of you.”

Danny stilled, finally realizing that Steve wasn’t joking. “You’d stop saving the world to come work with me in my restaurant?”

“Why not?” And there was the argument face, the one that meant he knew he was right. The one that meant he was going to keep pushing until Danny saw reason. “I’m a decent cook, though knowing you you’d probably confine me to just chopping things, and I mix a pretty mean drink. You wouldn’t even have to pay me much.”

 Danny just stared, feeling something faintly hysterical bubble up inside his chest. “You’d get bored in a week.  No, a day.  Half a day.”

“If I have to choose between being bored with you and working at 5-0 without you, there’s no question which one I’m going to choose.” Then he smiled, the goofy one that Danny still hadn’t built up sufficient defenses against. “If you hire me, of course. Which you really should.”

This... this made no sense. Sure, maybe if he was trying to talk Danny out of retiring, but not... not this. “You’re serious.”

“What? It’s a great idea.” Having run out of dishes to dry – Danny was too busy trying to process what was happening to wash more – Steve leaned back against the edge of the counter and continued his pitch. “Even you have to admit it’s a much better one than trying to get you to name the restaurant after me. Every time I came in to eat, I’d just want to hang out in the kitchen anyway. You might as well put me to work.”

It was actually a relatively reasonable argument, particularly compared to some of the other arguments Steve had tried to make over the years. But the fact that he seemed to _mean_ it, that he sounded perfectly content moving into a life no longer suitable for an action movie, made Danny feel like reality had tilted and he was slowly sliding off the edge. “Following me into retirement is not the same thing as keeping me from retiring. You know that, right?”

Steve looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Since I have the ability to follow basic logic, I’d say I do know that.”

He was trying to make it sound simple, and it wasn’t. It really, _really_ fucking wasn’t. “Because, see, keeping me from retiring? I’d assumed that was just your usual insane control issues talking. You wanting everything in its place and arranged how you like it is standard operating procedure.” He dried off his hands, fingers clenching in the towel. “But stopping doing work that you love, and fulfills you on some deeply unhealthy level, to come work with me in a restaurant that you were wildly dismissive of not more than 12 hours ago? That’s...” His breath snagged in his chest. “Something else.”

“It isn’t, though.” Steve’s voice was quiet, and when Danny looked again his expression was well into shutdown mode. “My reasons for one are the same as my reasons for the other.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, though.” Danny knew he sounded a little crazed, but Steve  _really_ needed to stop talking like this. This wasn’t reality, he _knew_ it wasn’t reality, and the fact that Steve kept insisting it was made Danny feel like he was in free fall. “I know you feel like there are no secrets I’m allowed to keep from you, but do you understand that retiring with me would actually _deprive_ you?” He gestured to emphasize his point. “You would have to lose something that matters a whole hell of a lot to you, and all you’d get in return is the pleasure of arguing with me as many hours a day as you do right now. Have you _processed_ that?”

Steve’s expression grew even stonier. “Yes, Danny. I’ll say it a dozen more times if I need to.” His jaw tightened. “If you don’t want to hire me, that’s fine. But stop making it seem like I’m crazy for wanting this.”

“Oh, so this is _my_ fault now?” Even the _idea_ was so wrong Danny couldn’t deal with it. _Steve_ was the one who had screwed up Danny’s brain, and heart, and... and....

Hands moving of their own accord, Danny grabbed Steve’s shirt and dragged him down for a kiss. It wasn’t even that, really – their mouths crashed together, yes, but Steve was frozen as stiff as a statue. That was enough of a warning to make Danny’s brain leap forward and reclaim control of the situation, jerking Danny away from Steve and letting go as if he’d been lit on fire.

For an endless second, they both stood there staring at each other. Steve... he had _never_ seen Steve that shocked, so thrown it seemed like he was having real trouble drawing breath into his lungs. Danny was full of ice cold terror, every fuck-up in his life feeling like they were crashing back down on his head all at once. “I... I just....” He swallowed. “I’m going to go. Me and Charlie. Possibly flee the country.”

“You kissed me.” Steve’s voice was barely a breath, but his focus on Danny seemed to gain intensity with every second. “You _kissed_ me.”

He was in hell. This was what his hell looked like. “Stop saying that! I was just as present for the last 30 seconds of my apparent nervous breakdown as you were!”

“How....” He stopped, looking almost fragile for a second. “Did you not want to kiss me?”

Could he damn himself more than he already had? Somehow, Danny suspected he could. “Don’t make me answer that.”

Steve’s expression firmed, but the stoniness was gone. In its place was pure intensity, the kind that Danny had seen take down entire fucking buildings. “So you _wanted_ to kiss me.”

Danny’s heart was pounding so loudly they could probably hear it back in Jersey. “You asshole, I have successfully _not_ kissed you for years. This was one slip up, _one_ , and if you would just shut up about it I could—“

Whatever else he’d been about to say was cut off, because suddenly Steve was kissing him. All of the intensity that had been on Steve’s face was now focused on Danny, and Danny’s mouth, a fact that rendered everything else completely irrelevant. His brain was probably leaking out of his ears, but the bits that were left had the good sense to grab on and make the most out of every single second.

When they broke apart, however, there were a few questions. “What?” he asked weakly.

“I thought I made myself pretty clear, Danno,” Steve said softly, his expression so full of tenderness and awe that it made Danny’s eyes sting.

But this was too important. Even the darker, sharper parts of his brain had to be sure. “You didn’t kiss me back. And you said ‘bro.’”

The “seriously?” face Steve gave him was more reassuring than any endearment could have been. “I was in shock, mostly for the exact same reason I keep calling you things like ‘bro’ and ‘buddy.’” He tightened his arms around Danny. “Because I was under the impression that the guy I’ve been in love with for seven years thought of me in a strictly platonic fashion.”

Oh. _Oh_. “We’ve been pining.”

Steve’s lips curved upward. “It would seem so.”

“We’ve been mutually pining like completely oblivious assholes.”

Steve’s smile widened into a grin. “Pretty much.”

The only acceptable response to that was to drag Steve down again and kiss him. This one was slightly less frantic than the other two, both of them realizing that this was something they would get to do again and _again_ , but if anything that only made it more addictive. They could savor now, tasting and exploring, and hunger coiled in Danny’s gut when he realized he now had the chance to explore the one part of his partner he wasn’t already intimately familiar with. They’d had so—

He broke the kiss as a thought hit him. “Seven years?” he asked incredulously.

“Six years, nine months, and five days,” Steve rattled off, like the fact that he’d apparently been in love with Danny almost the _entire time they’d known each other_ was just one of the basic facts of the universe. “But you were annoyed last time I got that specific.”

Danny’s chest constricted. “You are going to make anniversaries absolute hell, aren’t you?” he managed, voice rough. “I have no idea why I’m in love with you.”

They moved together for another kiss, lips only centimeters apart, when there was a small voice from the kitchen doorway. “Daddy?”

Danny pulled back, but he didn’t let go of Steve as he turned to his son. “Yeah, kiddo?” He could feel Steve tense, but he didn’t try to pull away either.

Charlie tilted his head, giving them both a curious look. “You and Uncle Steve kiss now?”

Danny couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “Yeah, it looks like we do. How do you feel about that?”

Charlie just shrugged. “I thought you already did before. Grace had to tell me you didn’t.” His expression lit as a thought occurred to him. “Can I be the one to tell her you do now?”

Maybe it would actually be easier, having a small child announce it to everyone. “Sure, kiddo.”

Charlie grinned at them both, content with the universe once again, then headed back into the living room. Once he’d gone, Steve turned back to Danny with a hesitant look. “Danny, you don’t have to—”

Danny pulled him down for a quick kiss that cut off whatever self-sacrificial thing he’d been about to offer. “Stop. Whatever is about to come out of your mouth will be too ridiculous for me to handle right now.” Then, reluctantly, he made himself let go. “Now come on, you goof. We’ve got dishes to finish.”

“I don’t know.” Steve said loftily, even as he moved into position right next to Danny. “If I’m not being paid for it....”

Danny sighed dramatically. “You are the torment of my life.”

Steve just grinned. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my new original fiction on my [blog](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)


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